by Revis, Beth
“I like that,” the leader of a group, a Devaronian female named Blue, said. “You’ve worked with us before, but kept your tongue so silent we didn’t even know it.”
“More like Risi kept his tongue quiet because he didn’t want me asking for a bigger cut by going directly to you,” Jyn said.
Blue smiled. “Risi spoke the universal language of credits,” she said. “You and I, I think, speak another tongue.” She threw an arm around Jyn’s shoulders, her downy fur tickling the back of Jyn’s neck.
Jyn shook her head. “I just want to get paid,” she said. Her stomach churned. She was caught between the Empire and a rebel group, and she hated it.
Blue’s group operated throughout the Five Points system, with a few runs beyond into neighboring solar systems. Despite the ship’s size, the crew was small—Blue, Jyn, a pair of Ma’cella brothers, an older Krish pilot, and a mechanic whose species Jyn couldn’t identify and was too shy to ask. It was odd at first for Jyn to be the only human, but she soon fell into a fairly easy comradery with the group.
“You work quick,” Blue commented as Jyn uploaded a new manifest and set of clearance codes for the ship after the first week of flight. The ship had done nothing major, just a few legitimate cargo runs. Blue wanted to keep everything on the up and up after Risi Amp’s arrest, just in case.
“Thanks,” Jyn said.
“I’m thinking we’ll head to Watassay next,” she continued, taking a sip of caf from her thermal canteen.
“Okay,” Jyn said.
“But I don’t want it to look like we went to Watassay,” she said. “Can the manifest say Hirara instead?”
“Sure,” Jyn reached for her code replicator. She paused. It didn’t matter. The Imperial tracking code had already been uploaded in the ship’s mainframe; Admiral Rocwyn knew exactly where the ship was going and where it had been. But if Blue was taking her to the headquarters, Jyn’s participation with the group would be over sooner rather than later. “What’s on Watassay?” she asked.
“A job,” Blue said simply.
Watassay was surrounded by an Imperial blockade. “Time to see if those clearance codes of yours work, girl,” said Shawburn, the pilot of Blue’s ship.
“They’ll work,” Jyn said confidently. In part because they’ve got a true Imperial tag.
There was tense silence as the ship was scanned, then docking clearance flashed over their comm screen.
“Good work,” Blue said in a soft voice, dropping a big hand on Jyn’s shoulder and giving it a comforting squeeze.
The job, it turned out, was unloading the crates that had been in storage on the freighter. Each crate was full of foodstuffs—not very appetizing, but a full round of nutrients and easily distributable to the locals.
“Thank you, thank you,” the man who accepted the delivery kept saying. His cheeks were hollowed, and he had a gaunt look about him.
Blue had the crew work as quickly as possible, unloading and helping with the distribution in a small makeshift town. They were back in the air as soon as possible.
“What was wrong with them?” Jyn asked.
“What do you mean?” Blue countered.
“The people. They looked like they were starving.”
The Krish pilot looked at Jyn with wide eyes. “Because they were ,” she said. “Why do you think we were bringing them food?”
Jyn frowned down at the table.
“The Empire wants that part of Watassay for their own resources, so they’re trying to starve them out,” Blue said. “They’ve cut them off from importing any food. That was the first shipment they’ve had in a standard month. Dwindun said they’d been softening tree bark to fill their bellies. The foodstuffs we gave them should help.”
Jyn felt something in her heart, a stabbing sensation, like a knife twisting. She looked down at the code replicator in her hand. She had already infected the ship with the Empire’s tracker. It was done. There was no going back.
And why can’t they just help themselves? Jyn thought savagely. How many times had the Empire done this sort of thing, forcing a company out of business, taking over an area? They could have just left. They didn’t need Blue. They needed to leave. If there was one lesson Jyn had learned, it was simply this: whenever the Empire or the rebellion showed up at your door, the best thing you could do was run.
That evening, Jyn took a viewscreen uploaded with old holodramas and curled up on the bench behind the table. The day’s mission had struck a chord with everyone, and it was quiet on board the ship.
She felt Shawburn’s eyes watching her. “What?” she asked, looking up from the viewer.
Shawburn smiled wistfully. “You remind me of Bardbee,” she said.
The name, strangely, seemed a little familiar to Jyn. “Who is Bardbee?” she asked.
“He was a member of our crew. Got captured on Uchinao, after a mission went sour. He used to lay on that bench after missions, just like you’re doing. Well, not just like. He was a Rayeth—long and slender, with these membranes….”
Shawburn kept reminiscing, but Jyn felt sick to her stomach. She knew Bardbee.
“Anyway, we’ve not heard from him since his arrest,” Shawburn said.
Jyn had heard from him. Jyn had heard his screams.
Burta, the ship’s mechanic, was watching Jyn and Shawburn as well, looking up from a spare catalyzer she’d been working on. “Don’t think you’re taking Bardbee’s place,” she growled.
“I don’t,” Jyn said quietly.
“She’s not,” Shawburn said in a louder voice. “’Sides, Bardbee didn’t work codes. We hired ’em out. Liana’s got a right to be here.”
Jyn internally cringed; Shawburn was sticking up for her, and she didn’t even know her real name.
Burta rolled her eyes. Black oil stained her lavender skin as she rubbed a spot on her forehead. “That’s what all humans think,” she muttered.
Shawburn turned back to Jyn. “Don’t mind her,” she grumbled. “That one has it in for any humans.”
“I don’t see any Krish in the Empire,” Burta shot back. “Or any Devaronians or anyone else.”
“I don’t work for—I’m not Imperial,” Jyn sputtered weakly.
“No one’s saying you are,” Shawburn said, shooting Burta a dark look.
“I have wondered,” Burta said as if Jyn hadn’t spoken, “what this galaxy would be like without humans. Would the Krish have left their homeworld?” she said, jerking her head toward the pilot. “Would I have been on a ship soaring through space?”
“Other species have interstellar travel,” Jyn protested. “That didn’t just come from humans. The humans never would have figured it out if not for—”
Burta cut her off. “That’s not what I mean. I mean”—she sighed heavily—“humans spread .”
“Spread?”
“They’re never happy. They’re always moving. Spreading out. Taking new planets. Every ‘settlement,’ every colony, every outpost in the Outer Rim—it’s always humans, isn’t it? It’s always humans spreading across the galaxy, leeching away at the people and the plants and the animals and the worlds. And now there’s the Empire and the rebels, and while other species are a part of it, at the core it’s just more humans.”
“Some people,” Jyn said, “would consider this a skill. Humans adapt. Got mountains? Build ridgecrawlers. Too much water? Build scub-subs. An ice planet? Use radiated igurts. People adapt.”
“Yes,” Burta said, “but should they? Either humans adapt, or they force the planet to adapt to them. This is not normal.”
This was not an issue Jyn had ever truly considered before. She thought of her family. Her father mining crystals and working with the Empire until the planets could give him no more. But on the other hand, her mother trying to protect planets with legacy status, researching the B’ankor refuge on Coruscant.
And there was beauty out there, too. Jyn ignored it, but if it hadn’t been for her parents, she never would have se
en the crystal caves of Alpinn. She wouldn’t have stood on the island in Wrea and seen the meteors shower down as bits from the asteroid belt broke off and fell to the planet. She wouldn’t have gone to Skuhl and tasted bunn or seen a bulba. Or kissed Hadder.
“There are other species all across the galaxy,” Jyn protested. “I couldn’t even count all the different species on Coruscant—”
Burta waved her hand. “The exception, not the rule. Every species has the rare freak that wants to explore, to abandon their homeworld.”
“Including you?”
Burta looked sad for a moment. “Including me.”
Blue took on two more legitimate jobs before restocking with foodstuffs on Satotai for another supply run to Watassay. Jyn was starting to doubt they’d ever go to their secret base, the headquarters that apparently connected Blue’s group to a wider network, one the Empire wanted to take down.
She was starting to like working with Blue and the rest of the crew…and she hated that. The more she fell into a friendship with them, the more acutely aware Jyn was of the futility of it all. She had already infected the ship with a tracker code. Every time they passed an Imperial checkpoint or made it through a blockade, Blue beamed at Jyn, and Jyn knew that Admiral Rocwyn was logging the ship’s location.
It wasn’t that she felt Blue was making the right choice by subverting the Empire. She just liked Blue and her crew as people. If she could convince them to do something other than undermine the Empire, to leave this system and quit dabbling in insurgencies, Jyn would happily join them.
The day before they reached Watassay, Blue knocked on Jyn’s door.
“You’ve not been with us that long,” she said, “and the crew likes working with you.”
“Not Burta,” Jyn said.
Blue laughed. “Burta likes you well enough for a human,” she said. “Don’t worry. She’s coming around.”
She shouldn’t, Jyn thought.
“Anyway, after this mission, we’re going off-system. There are other people we work with, other partisans. I want you to meet the rest of them. I think you’ll like what we’re doing.”
Jyn’s heart sank. So. She was finally being taken to the main base. It was over. But she liked Blue enough to want to be honest.
“Blue,” she said slowly, “I don’t understand you. You have a ship; you have a crew. Why are you trying to take on the Empire all on your own?”
Blue leaned in conspiratorially. “Who says I’m alone?”
Damn, Jyn thought. “Look, Blue, I like you. But I’m not here for some bigger mission or ideals or anything like that. I care about getting paid. I don’t want to get involved in anything bigger. I have seen how bad things can be. I don’t want to be a part of that.”
“Liana, you saw Watassay. You saw what a difference we made.”
“I saw people who should have given up their claims on a mine and gotten off-world a long time ago,” Jyn snapped. “The best thing you can do right now is give up whatever group you’re in and quit making Imperial enemies.” Or rebel allies, she thought.
Blue stared at her for several long moments. “I don’t believe that,” she said. “And I don’t believe you believe that.”
“You’re wrong,” Jyn promised.
Blue smiled. “We’ll see.”
Blue shut the door behind her, and Jyn stared at it silently for a long time. I tried, Jyn thought. Blue was a good person.
Too bad she was a rebel.
“I’m always nervous, seeing Star Destroyers like that,” Shawburn said, glaring at the blockade surrounding Watassay. “They ain’t natural, ships that big.”
“Don’t be nervous,” Blue said from the copilot’s seat. “Liana has us covered.” She looked over her shoulder and shot Jyn a smile.
Jyn swallowed. She would be so happy when she could quit being in the middle of two groups she hated. It was almost over. And then, even if it took every credit she had, Jyn was leaving the Five Points system.
“Uploading our clearance codes and manifest now,” Shawburn said.
“They’ve locked a tractor beam on us,” Blue said, her voice growing tense.
“The codes ain’t working this time.” Burta glowered at Jyn.
“They should,” Jyn said, surprised.
“They’re just doing a deeper scan,” Blue said, cutting through the tension. “They’re still going to accept Liana’s codes.”
After several uneasy moments, Shawburn said, “Codes cleared.”
Jyn let out a whoosh of breath. Burta glared at her.
“Tractor beam still locked,” Blue said.
“The Star Destroyer is hailing us directly,” Shawburn added.
A steady beeping filled the control room.
“We should answer it,” Shawburn said.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“We should,” Blue agreed. But she hesitated a moment longer before answering the incoming holo.
“Admiral Rocwyn from the Star Destroyer Authority ,” the admiral said in a crisp voice. “This ship has been identified as part of a partisan group working to undermine the Empire.”
“How did they know?” Shawburn asked in a voice that broke Jyn’s heart.
“Prepare for boarding. Do not attempt to resist.” The admiral’s voice cut out abruptly.
“How did they know?” Burta snarled, cutting her eyes to Jyn.
“Settle,” Blue ordered. “We know nothing now. They don’t have proof. Our docs will check out.” She shot Jyn a brief smile. “You two with me,” she said to Burta and Jyn after giving Shawburn the order to unlock the port.
The three were silent as they clomped down the metal hallway to the transport tube. Blue stood very straight, her eyes on the port as it opened and two stormtroopers marched onto her ship. It was taking everything in her to show courage, Jyn could tell.
A pair of Imperial officers followed the stormtroopers, then Admiral Rocwyn and two more troopers. They lined up in a curve around Blue, Burta, and Jyn.
“Secure the ship,” the admiral said languidly, and three of the stormtroopers filed out.
“Admiral,” Blue said, not a hint of quaver in her voice, “our docs are in order. We are a legitimate operation freighting cargo throughout the system. We pay our fees, and—”
The admiral cut her off with a bored wave of her hand. “You’re all under arrest for conspiring against the Empire.” She did not even deign to look Blue in the face as she said it.
Before Blue could protest, the fourth stormtrooper stepped forward, slapping the Devaronian in cuffs.
“Hey!” Burta bellowed. The stormtrooper blasted her, and she dropped to the ground. Blue cried out, but the blast had been set to stun. The stormtrooper cuffed Burta before she could wake up.
And Jyn just stood there.
The stormtrooper approached with a third set of cuffs. “No,” Jyn said, stepping back and shaking her head.
Blue narrowed her eyes.
“Her too,” Admiral Rocwyn said idly.
“No!” Jyn said louder, jerking away from the stormtrooper.
“How did you find us out?” Blue snarled, wrenching against her cuffs.
The admiral smiled, her lips curving up slowly, maliciously.
“How?” Blue shouted. The other three stormtroopers marched back to the port, the rest of the crew cuffed, their heads low.
“That disgusting Rayeth gave you up before he died,” Admiral Rocwyn said. “But even if he hadn’t, Liana was kind enough to plant a tracker on you. We know everything. As captain, you’ll be executed for your treason.” She stated this in a mild, matter-of-fact tone that brooked no argument. “The others…” She shrugged.
“Traitor!” Blue screamed at Jyn.
“I tried to tell you,” Jyn said. Her eyes moved to Blue, and she saw only fury and distrust in the Devaronian’s gaze.
“You didn’t try that hard,” Blue snarled. There was such pure rage in Blue’s eyes that Jyn flinched. But there was something else there tha
t she recognized, too, that reminded her of Saw. He’d had that same fury.
And Jyn realized with a shock, she had once burned with belief, too. Her heart thudded in her chest, hollow.
“Her as well,” Admiral Rocwyn said in an irritated voice, flicking her hand at Jyn. “Hurry up.”
“I did what you said!” Jyn said, whirling around to face the admiral. She was aware—and ashamed—of the plea in her voice, of the way the crew of the XO1 stood witness to her treachery.
“Do you think that protects you?” Admiral Rocwyn said, feigning confusion. “Don’t be stupid, girl. You’re a petty criminal at best. We have no further need of you. And besides,” she added, shrugging, “if I do, I know exactly where I’ll be able to find you.”
As Jyn stood there in shock, the stormtrooper finally clasped one of her wrists in a cuff.
“In one of the Empire’s glorious labor camps,” the admiral finished.
Blind panic surged in Jyn. As the stormtrooper reached for her other wrist, she swung around wildly, slamming her fist painfully into his helmet.
“Come peacefully,” the stormtrooper ordered.
“Like hell I will,” Jyn snarled. She kicked out, low, sweeping the stormtrooper to the ground. Another attacked her, twisting her cuffed arm painfully behind her, but Jyn wrenched free, pushing him away. Something primal within her roared in her blood, and she fought against the stormtroopers viciously, far more desperately than she’d ever fought before. She felt certain that fate had finally caught up with her, that if she didn’t escape now, she never would.
But it did no good.
With the help of a stun prod and a sharp kick in her ribs, a stormtrooper dragged Jyn, cuffed, over to the wall, forcing her to stand beside Blue as the admiral strolled back to her Star Destroyer and the troopers prepared to put them in the brig.
Jyn stared at the metal floor, her eyes stinging. She could tell that Blue was watching her, and she dared to look up at the Devaronian, over to Shawburn. They had accepted her. They had wanted her to be a part of their movement, their cause. They had put their hope in her hands.
